1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cooling and heating system and more particularly to a cooling and heating system for outdoor enclosures, where the system employs a vortex tube.
2. Description of the Related Art
Free standing outdoor enclosures for telecommunications and cable television equipment typically need cooling of the internal electronic components. On the other hand, some items, such as batteries may benefit from added heat in cold climates to cause more efficient operation and to increase useful life. Certain types of batteries are optimized by maintaining their temperature at 77xc2x0 F. Hence, depending upon ambient temperature, such batteries may benefit from heating at times and cooling at other times. Typically, outdoor electronic enclosures in the past have been cooled by air conditioning, thermal electric coolers, heat exchangers and fans. These systems, however, may be expensive, bulky, short lived and/or environmentally hostile. Also, past systems are directed to macro level cooling.
Vortex tubes are well known devices to those skilled in the art and are explained in a number of earlier U.S. patents including U.S. Pat. Nos.: 1,952,281; 2,920,457; 3,173,273; 3,208,229; 3,654,768; 4,240,261; and 5,331,817, the disclosures of all of which are included herein by reference. As explained in these patents, a vortex tube is a device having no moving parts. When fed with compressed air, the vortex tube emits a stream of cold air from one end and a stream of hot air from the other end. There can be enough of a temperature difference between the two airstreams to freeze water with the cold air stream and to boil water with the hot airstream. In operation the compressed air enters a nozzle which injects the air tangentially into a vortex generating chamber. The chamber is positioned intermediate of the hot and cold ends of the vortex tube but closer to the cold end than the hot end. The air vortex created moves through the tube toward the hot end but a sufficient back pressure is developed to force some of the air toward the center of the tube and then back in the opposite direction. This back flow becomes very cold as it passes through the vortex tube and it forms the cold airstream. An obvious benefit of using a vortex tube is the environmental friendliness of the refrigerant, ordinary air. Also, the refrigerant is free and the vortex tube is a reliable machine.
Vortex tube cooling systems, however, are not as efficient as ordinary refrigeration units. Also, vortex tube systems are noisy and add more inefficiencies if the necessary air compressor is located at a distance from the vortex tube.
The present invention overcomes some of the problems of the past by providing a very efficient and compact cooling and heating system employing a vortex tube comprising an enclosure having first and second chambers and items therein to be cooled and/or heated, a vortex tube with a hot exhaust and a cold exhaust, the vortex tube being operatively connected to the enclosure, a compressed gas source operatively connected to the vortex tube wherein the vortex tube cold exhaust is connected to the first chamber in the enclosure and the vortex tube hot exhaust is connected to the second chamber in the enclosure.
An object of the present invention is to provide a cooling and heating system employing a vortex tube which is compact, lightweight, self contained, relatively inexpensive and usable outdoors. Another aim of the present invention is to provide a cooling and heating system using a vortex tube where the hot airstream is put to use instead of being dissipated to the ambient environment. Still another advantage of the present invention is to provide a cooling and heating system using a vortex tube with an environmentally friendly refrigerant, such as air. Yet another aspect of the present invention is to provide a cooling and heating system employing a vortex tube which is relatively quiet, relatively inexpensive and reliable. A still further object of the present invention is to provide a cooling and heating system using a vortex tube that can switch between heating and cooling as dictated by climate, is scalable by changing compressors and/or vortex tubes, is flexible in the range of heating and cooling available, and is operable using AC or DC power.
A more complete understanding of the present invention and other objects, aspects, aims and advantages thereof will be gained from a consideration of the following description of the preferred embodiments read in conjunction with the accompanying drawing provided herein.